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THE
LIFE OF CICERO
BY
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
_IN TWO VOLUMES_
VOL. II.
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1881
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
HIS RETURN FROM EXILE 7
CHAPTER II.
CICERO, AETAT. 52, 53, 54. 38
CHAPTER III.
MILO 59
CHAPTER IV.
CILICIA 76
CHAPTER V.
THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY 110
CHAPTER VI.
AFTER THE BATTLE 129
CHAPTER VII.
MARCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AND DEIOTARUS 147
CHAPTER VIII.
CAESAR'S DEATH 172
CHAPTER IX.
THE PHILIPPICS 195
CHAPTER X.
CICERO'S DEATH 231
CHAPTER XI.
CICERO'S RHETORIC 249
CHAPTER XII.
CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY 277
CHAPTER XIII.
CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS 304
CHAPTER XIV.
CICERO'S RELIGION 321
APPENDIX 333
INDEX 337
THE
LIFE OF CICERO.
CHAPTER I.
_HIS RETURN FROM EXILE._
Cicero's life for the next two years was made conspicuous by a series of
speeches which were produced by his exile and his return. These are
remarkable for the praise lavished on himself, and by the violence with
which he attacked his enemies. It must be owned that never was abuse
more abusive, or self-praise uttered in language more laudatory.[1]
Cicero had now done all that was useful in his public life. The great
monuments of his literature are to come. None of these had as yet been
written except a small portion of his letters--about a tenth--and of
these he thought no more in regard to the public than do any ordinary
letter-writers of to-day. Some poems had been produced, and a history of
his own Consulship in Greek; but these are unknown to us. He had already
become the greatest orator, perhaps, of all time--and we have many of
the speeches spoken by him. Some we have--those five, namely, telling
the story of Verres--not intended to be spoken, but written for the
occasion of the day rather than with a view to permanent literature. He
had been Quaestor, AEdile, Praetor, and Consul, with singular and
undeviating success. He had been honest in the exercise of public
functions when to be honest was to be singular. He had bought golden
opinions from all sorts of people. He had been true to his country, and
useful also--a combination which it was given to no other public man of
those days to achieve. Having been Praetor and Consul, he had refused the
accustomed rewards, and had abstained from the provinces. His speeches,
with but few exceptions, had hitherto been made in favor of honesty.
They are declamations against injustice, against bribery, against
cruelty, and all on behalf of decent civilized life. Had he died then,
he would not have become the hero of literature, the marvel among men of
letters whom the reading world admires; but he would have been a great
man, and would have saved himself from the bitterness of Caesarean
tongues.
His public work was in truth done. His further service consisted of the
government of Cilicia for a year--an employment that was odious to him,
though his performance of it was a blessing to the province. After that
there came the vain struggle with Caesar, the attempt to make the best of
Caesar victorious, the last loud shriek on behalf of the Republic, and
then all was over. The fourteen years of life which yet remained to him
sufficed for erecting that literary monument of which I have spoken, but
his public usefulness was done. To the reader of his biography it will
seem that these coming fourteen years will lack much of the grace which
adorned the last twenty. The biographer will be driven to make excuses,
which he will not do without believing in the truth of them, but
doubting much whether he may beget belief in others. He thinks that he
can see the man passing from one form to another--his doubting devotion
to Pompey, his enforced adherence to Caesar, his passionate opposition to
Antony; but he can still see him true to his country, and ever on the
alert against tyranny and on behalf of pure patriotism.
At the present we have to deal with Cicero in no vacillating spirit, but
loudly exultant and loudly censorious. Within the two years following
his return he made a series of speeches, in all of which we find the
altered tone of his mind. There is no longer that belief in the ultimate
success of justice, and ultimate triumph of the Republic, which glowed
in his Verrine and Catiline orations. He is forced to descend in his
aspirations. It is not whether Rome shall be free, or the bench of
justice pure, but whether Cicero shall be avenged and Gabinius punished.
It may have been right--it was right--that Cicero should be avenged and
Gabinius punished; but it must be admitted that the subjects are less
alluring.
His first oration, as generally received, was made to the Senate in
honor of his return. The second was addressed to the people on the same
subject. The third was spoken to the college of priests, with the view
of recovering the ground on which his house had stood, and which Clodius
had attempted to alienate forever by dedicating it to a pretended
religious purpose. The next, as coming on our list, though not so in
time, was addressed again to the Senate concerning official reports made
by the public soothsayers as interpreters of occult signs, as to whether
certain portents had been sent by the gods to show that Cicero ought not
to have back his house. Before this was made he had defended Sextius,
who as Tribune had been peculiarly serviceable in assisting his return.
This was before a bench of judges; and separated from this, though made
apparently at the same time, is a violent attack upon Vatinius, one of
Caesar's creatures, who was a witness against Sextius. Then there is a
seventh, regarding the disposition of the provinces among the Propraetors
and Proconsuls, the object of which was to enforce the recall of Piso
from Macedonia and Gabinius from Syria, and to win Caesar's favor by
showing that Caesar should be allowed to keep the two Gauls and
Illyricum. To these must be added two others, made within the same
period, for Caelius and Balbus. The close friendship between Cicero and
the young man Caelius was one of the singular details of the orator's
life. Balbus was a Spaniard, attached to Caesar, and remarkable as having
been the first man not an Italian who achieved the honor of the
Consulship.
It has been disputed whether the first four of these orations were
really the work of Cicero, certain German critics and English scholars
having declared them to be "parum Ciceronias"--too little like Cicero.
That is the phrase used by Nobbe, who published a valuable edition of
all Cicero's works, after the text of Ernesti, in a single volume. Mr.
Long, in his introduction to these orations, denounces them in language
so strong as to rob them of all chance of absolute acceptance from those
who know the accuracy of Mr. Long's scholarship.[2] There may probably
have been subsequent interpolations. The first of the four, however, is
so closely referred to by Cicero himself in the speech made by him two
years subsequently in the defence of Plancius, that the fact of an
address to the Senate in the praise of those who had assisted him in his
return cannot be doubted; and we are expressly told by the orator that,
because of the importance of the occasion, he had written it out before
he spoke it.[3] As to the Latinity, it is not within my scope, nor
indeed within my power, to express a confident opinion; but as to the
matter of the speech, I think that Cicero, in his then frame of mind,
might have uttered what is attributed to him. Having said so much, I
shall best continue my narrative by dealing with the four speeches as
though they were genuine.
[Sidenote: B.C. 57, aetat. 50.]
Cicero landed at Brundisium on the 5th of August, the day on which his
recall from exile had been enacted by the people, and there met his
daughter Tullia, who had come to welcome him back to Italy on that her
birthday. But she had come as a widow, having just lost her first
husband, Piso Frugi. At this time she was not more than nineteen years
old. Of Tullia's feelings we know nothing from her own expressions, as
they have not reached us; but from the warmth of her father's love for
her, and by the closeness of their friendship, we are led to imagine
that the joy of her life depended more on him than on any of her three
husbands. She did not live long with either of them, and died soon after
the birth of a child, having been divorced from the third. I take it,
there was much of triumph in the meeting, though Piso Frugi had died so
lately.
The return of Cicero to Rome was altogether triumphant. It must be
remembered that the contemporary accounts we have had of it are
altogether from his own pen. They are taken chiefly from the orations I
have named above, though subsequent allusions to the glory of his return
to Rome are not uncommon in his works. But had his boasting not been
true, the contradictions to them would have been made in such a way as
to have reached our ears. Plutarch, indeed, declares that Cicero's
account of the glory of his return fell short of the truth.
It may be taken for granted that with that feeble monster, the citizen
populace of Rome, Cicero had again risen to a popularity equal to that
which had been bestowed upon him when he had just driven Catiline out of
Rome. Of what nature were the crowds who were thus loud in the praise of
their great Consul, and as loud afterward in their rejoicings at the
return of the great exile, we must form our own opinion from
circumstantial evidence. There was a mass of people, with keen ears
taking artistic delight in eloquence and in personal graces, but
determined to be idle, and to be fed as well as amused in their
idleness; and there were also vast bands of men ready to fight--bands of
gladiators they have been called, though it is probable that but few of
them had ever been trained to the arena--whose business it was to shout
as well as to fight on behalf of their patrons. We shall not be
justified in supposing that those who on the two occasions named gave
their sweet voices for Cicero were only the well-ordered, though idle,
proportion of the people, whereas they who had voted against him in
favor of Clodius had all been assassins, bullies, and swordsmen. We
shall probably be nearer the mark if we imagine that the citizens
generally were actuated by the prevailing feelings of their leaders at
the moment, but were carried into enthusiasm when enabled, without
detriment to their interests, to express their feelings for one who was
in truth popular with them. When Cicero, after the death of the five
conspirators, declared that the men "had lived"--"vixerunt"--his own
power was sufficient to insure the people that they would be safe in
praising him. When he came back to Rome, Pompey had been urgent for his
return, and Caesar had acceded to it. When the bill was passed for
banishing him, the Triumvirate had been against him, and Clodius had
been able to hound on his crew. But Milo also had a crew, and Milo was
Cicero's friend. As the Clodian crew helped to drive Cicero from Rome,
so did Milo's crew help to bring him back again.
Cicero, on reaching Rome, went at once to the Capitol, to the temple of
Jupiter, and there returned thanks for the great thing that had been
done for him. He was accompanied by a vast procession who from the
temple went with him to his brother's house, where he met his wife, and
where he resided for a time. His own house in the close neighborhood had
been destroyed. He reached Rome on the 4th of September, and on the 5th
an opportunity was given to the then hero of the day for expressing his
thanks to the Senate for what they had done for him. His intellect had
not grown rusty in Macedonia, though he had been idle. On the 5th,
Cicero spoke to the Senate; on the 6th, to the people. Before the end
of the month he made a much longer speech to the priests in defence of
his own property. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks, and his heart
was very full of the subject.
His first object was to thank the Senate and the leading members of it
for their goodness to him. The glowing language in which this is done
goes against the grain with us when we read continuously the events of
his life as told by himself. His last grievous words had been
expressions of despair addressed to Atticus; now he breaks out into a
paean of triumph. We have to remember that eight months had intervened,
and that the time had sufficed to turn darkness into light. "If I cannot
thank you as I ought, O Conscript Fathers, for the undying favors which
you have conferred on me, on my brother, and my children, ascribe it, I
beseech you, to the greatness of the things you have done for me, and
not to the defect of my virtue." Then he praises the two Consuls, naming
them, Lentulus and Metellus--Metellus, as the reader will remember,
having till lately been his enemy. He lauds the Praetors and the
Tribunes, two of the latter members having opposed his return; but he is
loudest in praise of Pompey--that "Sampsiceramus," that
"Hierosolymarius," that "Arabarches" into whose character he had seen so
clearly when writing from Macedonia to Atticus--that "Cn. Pompey who, by
his valor, his glory, his achievements, stands conspicuously the first
of all nations, of all ages, of all history." We cannot but be angry
when we read the words, though we may understand how well he understood
that he was impotent to do anything for the Republic unless he could
bring such a man as Pompey to act with him. We must remember, too, how
impossible it was that one Roman should rise above the falsehood common
to Romans. We cannot ourselves always escape even yet from the
atmosphere of duplicity in which policy delights. He describes the state
of Rome in his absence. "When I was gone, you"--you, the Senate--"could
decree nothing for your citizens, or for your allies, or for the
dependent kings. The judges could give no judgment; the people could not
record their votes; the Senate availed nothing by its authority. You saw
only a silent Forum, a speechless Senate-house, a city dumb and
deserted." We may suppose that Rome was what Cicero described it to be
when he was in exile, and Caesar had gone to his provinces; but its
condition had been the result of the crushing tyranny of the Triumvirate
rather than of Cicero's absence.
Lentulus, the present Consul, had been, he says, a second father, almost
a god, to him. But he would not have needed the hand of a Consul to
raise him from the ground, had he not been wounded by consular hands.
Catulus, one of Rome's best citizens, had told him that though Rome had
now and again suffered from a bad Consul, she had never before been
afflicted by two together. While there was one Consul worthy of the
name, Catulus had declared that Cicero would be safe. But there had come
two, two together, whose spirits had been so narrow, so low, so
depraved, so burdened with greed and ignorance, "that they had been
unable to comprehend, much less to sustain the splendor of the name of
Consul. Not Consuls were they, but buyers and sellers of provinces."
These were Piso and Gabinius, of whom the former was now governor of
Macedonia, and the latter of Syria. Cicero's scorn against these men,
who as Consuls had permitted his exile, became a passion with him. His
subsequent hatred of Antony was not as bitter. He had come there to
thank the assembled Senators for their care of him, but he is carried
off so violently by his anger that he devotes a considerable portion of
his speech to these indignant utterances. The reader does not regret it.
Abuse makes better reading than praise, has a stronger vitality, and
seems, alas, to come more thoroughly from the heart! Those who think
that genuine invective has its charms would ill spare Piso and Gabinius.
He goes back to his eulogy, and names various Praetors and officers who
have worked on his behalf. Then he declares that by the view of the
present Consul, Lentulus, a decree has been passed in his favor more
glorious than has been awarded to any other single Roman citizen--namely
that from all Italy those who wished well to their country should be
collected together for the purpose of bringing him back from his
banishment--him, Cicero. There is much in this in praise of Lentulus,
but more in praise of Cicero. Throughout these orations we feel that
Cicero is put forward as the hero, whereas Piso and Gabinius are the
demons of the piece. "What could I leave as a richer legacy to my
posterity," he goes on to say, opening another clause of his speech,
"than that the Senate should have decreed that the citizen who had not
come forward in my defence was one regardless of the Republic." By these
boastings, though he was at the moment at the top of the ladder of
popularity, he was offending the self-importance of all around him. He
was offending especially Pompey, with whom it was his fate to have to
act.[4] But that was little to the offence he was giving to those who
were to come many centuries after him, who would not look into the
matter with sufficient accuracy to find that his vanity deserved
forgiveness because of his humanity and desire for progress. "O
Lentulus," he says, at the end of the oration, "since I am restored to
the Republic, as with me the Republic is itself restored, I will slacken
nothing in my efforts at liberty; but, if it may be possible, will add
something to my energy." In translating a word here and there as I have
done, I feel at every expression my incapacity. There is no such thing
as good translation. If you wish to drink the water, with its life and
vigor in it, you must go to the fountain and drink it there.
On the day following he made a similar speech to the people--if, indeed,
the speech we have was from his mouth or his pen--as to which it has
been remarked that in it he made no allusion to Clodius, though he was
as bitter as ever against the late Consuls. From this we may gather
that, though his audience was delighted to hear him, even in his
self-praise, there might have been dispute had he spoken ill of one who
had been popular as Tribune. His praise of Pompey was almost more
fulsome than that of the day before, and the same may be said of his
self-glorification. Of his brother's devotion to him he speaks in
touching words, but in words which make us remember how untrue to him
afterward was that very brother. There are phrases so magnificent
throughout this short piece that they obtain from us, as they are read,
forgiveness for the writer's faults. "Sic ulciscar facinorum singula."
Let the reader of Latin turn to chapter ix. of the oration and see how
the speaker declares that he will avenge himself against the evil-doers
whom he has denounced.
Cicero, though he had returned triumphant, had come back ruined in
purse, except so far as he could depend on the Senate and the people for
reimbursing to him the losses to which he had been subjected. The decree
of the Senate had declared that his goods should be returned to him, but
the validity of such a promise would depend on the value which might be
put upon the goods in question. His house on the Palatine Hill had been
razed to the ground; his Tusculan and Formian villas had been destroyed;
his books, his pictures, his marble columns, his very trees, had been
stolen; but, worst of all, an attempt had been made to deprive him
forever of the choicest spot of ground in all the city, the Park Lane of
Rome, by devoting the space which had belonged to him to the service of
one of the gods. Clodius had caused something of a temple to Liberty to
be built there, because ground so consecrated was deemed at Rome, as
with us, to be devoted by consecration to the perpetual service of
religion. It was with the view of contesting this point that Cicero
made his next speech, Pro Domo Sua, for the recovery of his house,
before the Bench of Priests in Rome. It was for the priests to decide
this question. The Senate could decree the restitution of property
generally, but it was necessary that that spot of ground should be
liberated from the thraldom of sacerdotal tenure by sacerdotal
interference. These priests were all men of high birth and distinction
in the Republic. Nineteen among them were "Consulares," or past-Consuls.
Superstitious awe affects more lightly the consciences of priests than
the hearts of those who trust the priests for their guidance.
Familiarity does breed contempt. Cicero, in making this speech, probably
felt that, if he could carry the people with him, the College of Priests
would not hold the prey with grasping hands. The nineteen Consulares
would care little for the sanctity of the ground if they could be
brought to wish well to Cicero. He did his best. He wrote to Atticus
concerning it a few days after the speech was made, and declared that if
he had ever spoken well on any occasion he had done so then, so deep had
been his grief, and so great the importance of the occasion;[5] and he
at once informs his friend of the decision of the Bench, and of the
ground on which it was based. "If he who declares that he dedicated the
ground had not been appointed to that business by the people, nor had
been expressly commanded by the people to do it, then that spot of
ground can be restored without any breach of religion." Cicero asserts
that he was at once congratulated on having gained his cause, the world
knowing very well that no such authority had been conferred on Clodius.
In the present mood of Rome, all the priests, with the nineteen
Consulares, were no doubt willing that Cicero should have back his
ground. The Senate had to interpret the decision, and on the discussion
of the question among them Clodius endeavored to talk against time.
When, however, he had spoken for three hours, he allowed himself to be
coughed down. It may be seen that in some respects even Roman fortitude
has been excelled in our days.
In the first portion of this speech, Pro Domo Sua, Cicero devotes
himself to a matter which has no bearing on his house. Concomitant with
Cicero's return there had come a famine in Rome. Such a calamity was of
frequent occurrence, though I doubt whether their famines ever led to
mortality so frightful as that which desolated Ireland just before the
repeal of the Corn Laws. No records, as far as I am aware, have reached
us of men perishing in the streets; but scarcity was not uncommon, and
on such occasions complaints would become very loud. The feeding of the
people was a matter of great difficulty, and subject to various chances.
We do not at all know what was the number to be fed, including the free
and the slaves, but have been led by surmises to suppose that it was
under a million even in the time of Augustus. But even though the number
was no more than five hundred thousand at this time, the procuring of
food must have been a complicated and difficult matter. It was not
produced in the country. It was imported chiefly from Sicily and Africa,
and was plentiful or the reverse, not only in accordance with the
seasons but as certain officers of state were diligent and honest, or
fraudulent and rapacious. We know from one of the Verrine orations the
nature of the laws on the subject, but cannot but marvel that, even with
the assistance of such laws, the supply could be maintained with any
fair proportion to the demand. The people looked to the government for
the supply, and when it fell short would make their troubles known with
seditious grumblings, which would occasionally assume the guise of
insurrection. At this period of Cicero's return food had become scarce
and dear; and Clodius, who was now in arms against Pompey as well as
against Cicero, caused it to be believed that the strangers flocking
into Rome to welcome Cicero had eaten up the food which should have
filled the bellies of the people. An idea farther from truth could
hardly have been entertained: no chance influx of visitors on such a
population could have had the supposed effect. But the idea was spread
abroad, and it was necessary that something should be done to quiet the
minds of the populace. Pompey had hitherto been the resource in State
difficulties. Pompey had scattered the pirates, who seem, however, at
this period to have been gathering head again. Pompey had conquered
Mithridates. Let Pompey have a commission to find food for Rome. Pompey
himself entertained the idea of a commission which should for a time
give him almost unlimited power. Caesar was increasing his legions and
becoming dominant in the West. Pompey, who still thought himself the
bigger man of the two, felt the necessity of some great step in rivalry
of Caesar. The proposal made on his behalf was that all the treasure
belonging to the State should be placed at his disposal; that he should
have an army and a fleet, and should be for five years superior in
authority to every Proconsul in his own province. This was the first
great struggle made by Pompey to strangle the growing power of Caesar. It
failed altogether.[6] The fear of Caesar had already become too great in
the bosoms of Roman Senators to permit them to attempt to crush him in
his absence. But a mitigated law was passed, enjoining Pompey to provide
the food required, and conferring upon him certain powers. Cicero was
nominated as his first lieutenant, and accepted the position. He never
acted, however, giving it up to his brother Quintus. A speech which he
made to the people on the passing of the law is not extant; but as there
was hot blood about it in Rome, he took the opportunity of justifying
the appointment of Pompey in the earlier portion of this oration to the
priests. It must be understood that he did not lend his aid toward
giving those greater powers which Pompey was anxious to obtain. His
trust in Pompey had never been a perfect trust since the first days of
the Triumvirate. To Cicero's thinking, both Pompey and Caesar were
conspirators against the Republic. Caesar was the bolder, and therefore
the more dangerous. It might probably come to pass that the services of
Pompey would be needed for restraining Caesar. Pompey naturally belonged
to the "optimates," while Caesar was as naturally a conspirator. But
there never again could come a time in which Cicero would willingly
intrust Pompey with such power as was given to him nine years before by
the Lex Manilia. Nevertheless, he could still say grand things in praise
of Pompey. "To Pompey have been intrusted wars without number, wars most
dangerous to the State, wars by sea and wars by land, wars extraordinary
in their nature. If there be a man who regrets that this has been done,
that man must regret the victories which Rome has won." But his abuse of
Clodius is infinitely stronger than his praise of Pompey. For the
passages in which he alluded to the sister of Clodius I must refer the
reader to the speech itself. It is impossible here to translate them or
to describe them. And these words were spoken before the College of
Priests, of whom nineteen were Consulares! And they were prepared with
such care that Cicero specially boasted of them to Atticus, and declares
that they should be put into the hands of all young orators. Montesquieu
says that the Roman legislators, in establishing their religion, had no
view of using it for the improvement of manners or of morals.[7] The
nature of their rites and ceremonies gives us evidence enough that it
was so. If further testimony were wanting, it might be found in this
address, Ad Pontifices. Cicero himself was a man of singularly clean
life as a Roman nobleman, but, in abusing his enemy, he was restrained
by no sense of what we consider the decency of language.
He argues the question as to his house very well, as he did all
questions. He tells the priests that the whole joy of his restoration
must depend on their decision. Citizens who had hitherto been made
subject to such penalties had been malefactors; whereas, it was
acknowledged of him that he had been a benefactor to the city. Clodius
had set up on the spot, not a statue of Liberty, but, as was well known
to all men, the figure of a Greek prostitute. The priests had not been
consulted. The people had not ratified the proposed consecration. Of the
necessity of such authority he gives various examples. "And this has
been done," he says, "by an impure and impious enemy of all
religions--by this man among women, and woman among men--who has gone
through the ceremony so hurriedly, so violently, that his mind and his
tongue and his voice have been equally inconsistent with each other."
"My fortune," he says, as he ends his speech, "all moderate as it is,
will suffice for me. The memory of my name will be a patrimony
sufficient for my children;" but if his house be so taken from him, so
stolen, so falsely dedicated to religion, he cannot live without
disgrace. Of course he got back his house; and with his house about
L16,000 for its re-erection, and L4000 for the damage done to the
Tusculan villa with L2000 for the Formian villa. With these sums he was
not contented; and indeed they could hardly have represented fairly the
immense injury done to him.
[Sidenote: B.C. 56, aetat. 51.]
So ended the work of the year of his return. From the following year,
besides the speeches, we have twenty-six letters of which nine were
written to Lentulus, the late Consul, who had now gone to Cilicia as
Proconsul. Lentulus had befriended him, and he found it necessary to
show his gratitude by a continued correspondence, and by a close
attendance to the interests of the absent officer. These letters are
full of details of Roman politics, too intricate for such a work as
this--perhaps I might almost say too uninteresting, as they refer
specially to Lentulus himself. In one of them he tells his friend that
he has at last been able to secure the friendship of Pompey for him. It
was, after all, but a show of friendship. He has supped with Pompey, and
says that when he talks to Pompey everything seems to go well: no one
can be more gracious than Pompey. But when he sees the friends by whom
Pompey is surrounded he knows, as all others know, that the affair is in
truth going just as he would not have it.[8] We feel as we read these
letters, in which Pompey's name is continually before us, how much
Pompey prevailed by his personal appearance, by his power of saying
gracious things, and then again by his power of holding his tongue. "You
know the slowness of the man," he says to Lentulus, "and his
silence."[9] A slow, cautious, hypocritical man, who knew well how to
use the allurements of personal manners! These letters to Lentulus are
full of flattery.
There are five letters to his brother Quintus, dealing with the politics
of the time, especially with the then King of Egypt, who was to be, or
was not to be, restored. From all these things, however, I endeavor to
abstain as much as possible, as matters not peculiarly affecting the
character of Cicero. He gives his brother an account of the doings in
the Senate, which is interesting as showing us how that august assembly
conducted itself. While Pompey was speaking with much dignity, Clodius
and his supporters in vain struggled with shouts and cries to put him
down. At noon Pompey sat down, and Clodius got possession of the rostra,
and in the middle of a violent tumult remained on his feet for two
hours. Then, on Pompey's side, the "optimates" sang indecent songs
--"versus obscenissimi"--in reference to Clodius and his sister Clodia.
Clodius, rising in his anger, demanded, "Who had brought the famine?"
"Pompey," shouted the Clodians. "Who wanted to go to Egypt?" demanded
Clodius. "Pompey," again shouted his followers. After that, at three
o'clock, at a given signal, they began to spit upon their opponents.
Then there was a fight, in which each party tried to drive the others
out. The "optimates" were getting the best of it, when Cicero thought it
as well to run off lest he should be hurt in the tumult.[10] What hope
could there be for an oligarchy when such things occurred in the Senate?
Cicero in this letter speaks complacently of resisting force by force in
the city. Even Cato, the law-abiding, precise Cato, thought it necessary
to fall into the fashion and go about Rome with an armed following. He
bought a company of gladiators and circus-men; but was obliged to sell
them, as Cicero tells his brother with glee, because he could not afford
to feed them.[11]
There are seven letters also to Atticus--always more interesting than
any of the others. There is in these the most perfect good-feeling, so
that we may know that the complaints made by him in his exile had had no
effect of estranging his friend; and we learn from them his real,
innermost thoughts, as they are not given even to his brother--as
thoughts have surely seldom been confided by one man of action to
another. Atticus had complained that he had not been allowed to see a
certain letter which Cicero had written to Caesar. This he had called a
[Greek: palinodia], or recantation, and it had been addressed to Caesar
with the view of professing a withdrawal to some extent of his
opposition to the Triumvirate. It had been of sufficient moment to be
talked about. Atticus had heard of it, and had complained that it had
not been sent to him. Cicero puts forward his excuses, and then bursts
out with the real truth:
"Why should I nibble round the unpalatable morsel which has to be
swallowed?" The recantation had seemed to himself to be almost base, and
he had been ashamed of it. "But," says he, "farewell to all true,
upright, honest policy. You could hardly believe what treachery there is
in those who ought to be our leading men, and who would be so if there
was any truth in them."[12] He does not rely upon those who, if they
were true to their party, would enable the party to stand firmly even
against Caesar. Therefore it becomes necessary for him to truckle to
Caesar, not for himself but for his party. Unsupported he cannot stand in
open hostility to Caesar. He truckles. He writes to Caesar, singing
Caesar's praises. It is for the party rather than for himself, but yet he
is ashamed of it.
There is a letter to Lucceius, an historian of the day then much thought
of, of whom however our later world has heard nothing. Lucceius is
writing chronicles of the time, and Cicero boldly demands to be praised.
"Ut ornes mea postulem"[13]--"I ask you to praise me." But he becomes
much bolder than that. "Again and again I beseech you, without any
beating about the bush, to speak more highly of me than you perhaps
think that I deserve, even though in doing so you abandon all the laws
of history." Then he uses beautiful flattery to his correspondent.
Alexander had wished to be painted only by Apelles. He desires to be
praised by none but Lucceius. Lucceius, we are told, did as he was
asked.
[Sidenote: B.C. 56, aetat. 51.]
I will return to the speeches of the period to which this chapter is
devoted, taking that first which he made to the Senate as to the report
of the soothsayers respecting certain prodigies. Readers familiar with
Livy will remember how frequently, in time of disaster, the anger of
Heaven was supposed to have been shown by signs and miracles,
indications that the gods were displeased, and that expiations were
necessary.[14] The superstition, as is the fate of all superstitions,
had frequently been used for most ungodlike purposes. If a man had a
political enemy, what could do him better service than to make the
populace believe that a house had been crushed by a thunder-bolt, or
that a woman had given birth to a pig instead of a child, because
Jupiter had been offended by that enemy's devices? By using such a plea
the Grecians got into Troy, together with the wooden horse, many years
ago. The Scotch worshippers of the Sabbath declared the other day, when
the bridge over the Tay was blown away, that the Lord had interposed to
prevent travelling on Sunday!
Cicero had not been long back from his exile when the gods began to show
their anger. A statue of Juno twisted itself half round; a wolf had been
seen in the city; three citizens were struck with lightning; arms were
heard to clang, and then wide subterranean noises. Nothing was easier
than the preparation and continuing of such portents. For many years
past the heavens above and the earth beneath had been put into
requisition for prodigies.[15] The soothsayers were always well pleased
to declare that there had been some neglect of the gods. It is in the
nature of things that the superstitious tendencies of mankind shall fall
a prey to priestcraft. The quarrels between Cicero and Clodius were as
full of life as ever. In this year, Clodius being AEdile, there had come
on debates as to a law passed by Caesar as Consul, in opposition to
Bibulus, for the distribution of lands among the citizens. There was a
question as to a certain tax which was to be levied on these lands. The
tax-gatherers were supported by Cicero, and denounced by Clodius. Then
Clodius and his friends found out that the gods were showering their
anger down upon the city because the ground on which Cicero's house had
once stood was being desecrated by its re-erection. An appeal was made
to the soothsayers. They reported, and Cicero rejoined. The soothsayers
had of course been mysterious and doubtful. Cicero first shows that the
devotion of his ground to sacred purposes had been an absurdity, and
then he declares that the gods are angry, not with him but with Clodius.
To say that the gods were not angry at all was more than Cicero dared.
The piece, taken as a morsel of declamatory art, is full of vigor, is
powerful in invective, and carries us along in full agreement with the
orator; but at the conclusion we are led to wish that Cicero could have
employed his intellect on higher matters.
There are, however, one or two passages which draw the reader into deep
mental inquiry as to the religious feelings of the time. In one, which
might have been written by Paley, Cicero declares his belief in the
creative power of some god--or gods, as he calls them.[16] And we see
also the perverse dealings of the Romans with these gods, dealings
which were very troublesome--not to be got over except by stratagem. The
gods were made use of by one party and the other for dishonest state
purposes. When Cicero tells his hearers what the gods intended to
signify by making noises in the sky, and other divine voices, we feel
sure that he was either hoaxing them who heard him or saying what he
knew they would not believe.
[Sidenote: B.C. 56, aetat. 51.]
Previous to the speech as to the "aruspices," he had defended
Sextius--or Sestius, as he is frequently called--on a charge brought
against him by Clodius in respect of violence. We at once think of the
commonplace from Juvenal:
"Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes."
But Rome, without remonstrating, put up with any absurdity of that kind.
Sextius and Milo and others had been joined together in opposing the
election of Clodius as AEdile, and had probably met violence with
violence. As surely as an English master of hounds has grooms and whips
ready at his command, Milo had a band of bullies prepared for violence.
Clodius himself had brought an action against Milo, who was defended by
Pompey in person. The case against Sextius was intrusted to Albinovanus,
and Hortensius undertook the defence. Sextius before had been one of the
most forward in obtaining the return of Cicero, and had travelled into
Gaul to see Caesar and to procure Caesar's assent. Caesar had not then
assented; but not the less great had been the favor conferred by Sextius
on Cicero. Cicero had been grateful, but it seems that Sextius had
thought not sufficiently grateful; hence there had grown up something of
a quarrel. But Cicero, when he heard of the proceeding against his old
friend, at once offered his assistance. For a Roman to have more than
one counsel to plead for him was as common as for an Englishman. Cicero
was therefore added to Hortensius, and the two great advocates of the
day spoke on the same side. We are told that Hortensius managed the
evidence, showing, probably, that Clodius struck the first blow. Cicero
then addressed the judges with the object of gaining their favor for the
accused. In this he was successful, and Sextius was acquitted. As
regards Sextius and his quarrel with Clodius, the oration has but little
interest for us. There is not, indeed, much about Sextius in it. It is a
continuation of the paean which Cicero was still singing as to his own
return, but it is distinguished from his former utterances by finer
thought and finer language. The description of public virtue as
displayed by Cato has perhaps, in regard to melody of words and grandeur
of sentiment, never been beaten. I give the orator's words below in his
own language, because in no other way can any idea of the sound be
conveyed.[17] There is, too, a definition made very cleverly to suit his
own point of view between the conservatives and the liberals of the day.
"Optimates" is the name by which the former are known; the latter are
called "Populares."[18]
Attached to this speech for Sextius is a declamation against Vatinius,
who was one of the witnesses employed by the prosecutor. Instead of
examining this witness regularly, he talked him down by a separate
oration. We have no other instance of such a forensic manoeuvre either
in Cicero's practice or in our accounts of the doings of other Roman
advocates. This has reached us as a separate oration. It is a coarse
tirade of abuse against a man whom we believe to have been bad, but as
to whom we feel that we are not justified in supposing that we can get
his true character here. He was a creature of Caesar's, and Cicero was
able to say words as to Vatinius which he was unwilling to speak as to
Caesar and his doings. It must be added here that two years later Cicero
pleaded for this very Vatinius, at the joint request of Caesar and
Pompey, when Vatinius on leaving the Praetorship was accused of
corruption.
[Sidenote: B.C. 56, aetat. 51.]
The nature of the reward to which the aspiring oligarch of Rome always
turned his eyes has been sufficiently explained. He looked to be the
governor of a province. At this period of which we are speaking there
was no reticence in the matter. Syria, or Macedonia, or Hispania had
been the prize, or Sicily, or Sardinia. It was quite understood that an
aspiring oligarch went through the dust and danger and expense of
political life in order that at last he might fill his coffers with
provincial plunder. There were various laws as to which these
governments were allotted to the plunderers. Of these we need only
allude to the Leges Semproniae, or laws proposed B.C. 123, by Caius
Sempronius Gracchus, for the distribution of those provinces which were
to be enjoyed by Proconsuls. There were praetorian provinces and consular
provinces, though there was no law making it sure that any province
should be either consular or praetorian. But the Senate, without the
interference of the people and free from the Tribunes' veto, had the
selection of provinces for the Consuls; whereas, for those intended for
the Praetors, the people had the right of voting and the Tribunes of the
people had a right of putting a veto on the propositions made. Now, in
this year there came before the Senate a discussion as to the fate of
three Proconsuls--not as to the primary allocation of provinces to
them, but on the question whether they should be continued in the
government which they held. Piso was in Macedonia, where he was supposed
to have disgraced himself and the Empire which he served. Gabinius was
in Syria, where it was acknowledged that he had done good service,
though his own personal character stood very low. Caesar was lord in the
two Gauls--that is, on both sides of the Alps, in Northern Italy, and in
that portion of modern France along the Mediterranean which had been
already colonized--and was also governor of Illyricum. He had already
made it manifest to all men that the subjugation of a new empire was his
object rather than provincial plunder. Whether we love the memory of
Caesar as of a great man who showed himself fit to rule the world, or
turn away from him as from one who set his iron heel on the necks of
men, and by doing so retarded for centuries the liberties of mankind, we
have to admit that he rose by the light of his own genius altogether
above the ambition of his contemporaries. If we prefer, as I do, the
humanity of Cicero, we must confess to ourselves the supremacy of Caesar,
and acknowledge ourselves to belong to the beaten cause. "Victrix causa
Deis placuit; sed victa Catoni." In discussing the fate of these
proconsular officials we feel now the absurdity of mixing together in
the same debate the name of Piso and Gabinius with that of Caesar. Yet
such was the subject in dispute when Cicero made his speech, De
Provinciis Consularibus, as to the adjudication of the consular
provinces.
There was a strong opinion among many Senators that Caesar should be
stopped in his career. I need not here investigate the motives, either
great or little, on which this opinion was founded. There was hardly a
Senator among them who would not have wished Caesar to be put down,
though there were many who did not dare declare their wishes. There were
reasons for peculiar jealousy on the part of the Senate. Cisalpine Gaul
had been voted for him by the intervention of the people, and especially
by that of the Tribune Vatinius--to Caesar who was Consularis, whose
reward should have been an affair solely for the Senate. Then there had
arisen a demand, a most unusual demand, for the other Gaul also. The
giving of two provinces to one governor was altogether contrary to the
practice of the State; but so was the permanent and acknowledged
continuance of a conspiracy such as the Triumvirate unusual. Caesar
himself was very unusual. Then the Senate, feeling that the second
province would certainly be obtained, and anxious to preserve some shred
of their prerogative, themselves voted the Farther Gaul. As it must be
done, let it at any rate be said that they had done it. But as they had
sent Caesar over the Alps so they could recall him, or try to recall him.
Therefore, with the question as to Piso and Gabinius, which really meant
nothing, came up this also as to Caesar, which meant a great deal.
But Caesar had already done great things in Gaul. He had defeated the
Helvetians and driven Ariovistus out of the country. He had carried
eight legions among the distant Belgae, and had conquered the Nervii. In
this very year he had built a huge fleet, and had destroyed the Veneti,
a seafaring people on the coast of the present Brittany. The more
powerful he showed himself to be, the more difficult it was to recall
him; but also the more desirable in the eyes of many. In the first
portion of his speech Cicero handles Piso and Gabinius with his usual
invective. There was no considerable party desirous of renewing to them
their governments, but Cicero always revelled in the pleasure of abusing
them. He devotes by far the longer part of his oration to the merit of
Caesar.[19] As for recalling him, it would be irrational. Who had counted
more enemies in Rome than Marius? but did they recall Marius when he
was fighting for the Republic?[20] Hitherto the Republic had been forced
to fear the Gauls. Rome had always been on the defence against them. Now
it had been brought about by Caesar that the limits of the world were the
limits of the Roman Empire.[21] The conquest was not yet finished, but
surely it should be left to him who had begun it so well. Even though
Caesar were to demand to return himself, thinking that he had done enough
for his own glory, it would be for the Senators to restrain him--for the
Senate to bid him finish the work that he had in hand.[22] As for
himself, continued Cicero, if Caesar had been his enemy, what of that?
Caesar was not his enemy now. He had told the Senate what offers of
employment Caesar had made him. If he could not forget, yet he would
forgive, former injuries.[23]
It is important for the reading of Cicero's character that we should
trace the meaning of his utterances about Caesar from this time up to the
day on which Caesar was killed--his utterances in public, and those which
are found in his letters to Atticus and his brother. That there was much
of pretence--of falsehood, if a hard word be necessary to suit the
severity of those who judge the man hardly--is admitted. How he praised
Pompey in public, dispraising him in private, at one and the same
moment, has been declared. How he applied for praise, whether deserved
or not, has been shown. In excuse, not in defence, of this I allege that
the Romans of the day were habitually false after this fashion. The
application to Lucceius proves the habitual falseness not of Cicero
only, but of Lucceius also; and the private words written to Atticus, in
opposition to the public words with which Atticus was well acquainted,
prove the falseness also of Atticus. It was Roman; it was Italian; it
was cosmopolitan; it was human. I only wish that it were possible to
declare that it is no longer Italian, no longer cosmopolitan, no longer
human. To this day it is very difficult even for an honorable man to
tell the whole truth in the varying circumstances of public life. The
establishment of even a theory of truth, with all the advantages which
have come to us from Christianity, has been so difficult, hitherto so
imperfect, that we ought, I think, to consider well the circumstances
before we stigmatize Cicero as specially false. To my reading he seems
to have been specially true. When Caesar won his way up to power, Cicero
was courteous to him, flattered him, and, though, never subservient, yet
was anxious to comply when compliance was possible. Nevertheless, we
know well that the whole scheme of Caesar's political life was opposed to
the scheme entertained by Cicero. It was Cicero's desire to maintain as
much as he could of the old form of oligarchical rule under which, as a
constitution, the Roman Empire had been created. It was Caesar's
intention to sweep it all away. We can see that now; but Cicero could
only see it in part. To his outlook the man had some sense of order, and
had all the elements of greatness. He was better, at any rate, than a
Verres, a Catiline, a Clodius, a Piso, or a Gabinius. If he thought that
by flattery he could bring Caesar somewhat round, there might be conceit
in his so thinking, but there could be no treachery. In doing so he did
not abandon his political _beau ideal_. If better times came, or a
better man, he would use them. In the mean time he could do more by
managing Caesar than by opposing him. He was far enough from succeeding
in the management of Caesar, but he did do much in keeping his party
together. It was in this spirit that he advocated before the Senate the
maintenance of Caesar's authority in the two Gauls. The Senate decreed
the withdrawal of Piso and Gabinius, but decided to leave Caesar where he
was. Mommsen deals very hardly with Cicero as to this period of his
life. "They used him accordingly as--what he was good for--an advocate."
"Cicero himself had to thank his literary reputation for the respectful
treatment which he experienced from Caesar." The question we have to ask
ourselves is whether he did his best to forward that scheme of politics
which he thought to be good for the Republic. To me it seems that he did
do so. He certainly did nothing with the object of filling his own
pockets. I doubt whether as much can be said with perfect truth as to
any other Roman of the period, unless it be Cato.
Balbus, for whom Cicero also spoke in this year, was a Spaniard of
Cadiz, to whom Pompey had given the citizenship of Rome, who had become
one of Caesar's servants and friends, and whose citizenship was now
disputed. Cicero pleaded in favor of the claim, and gained his cause.
There were, no doubt, certain laws in accordance with which Balbus was
or was not a citizen; but Cicero here says that because Balbus was a
good man, therefore there should be no question as to his
citizenship.[24] This could hardly be a good legal argument. But we are
glad to have the main principles of Roman citizenship laid down for us
in this oration. A man cannot belong to more than one State at a time. A
man cannot be turned out of his State against his will. A man cannot be
forced to remain in his State against his will.[25] This Balbus was
acknowledged as a Roman, rose to be one of Caesar's leading ministers,
and was elected Consul of the Empire B.C. 40. Thirty-four years
afterward his nephew became Consul. Nearly three centuries after that,
A.D. 237, a descendant of Balbus was chosen as Emperor, under the name
of Balbinus, and is spoken of by Gibbon with eulogy.[26]
I know no work on Cicero written more pleasantly, or inspired by a
higher spirit of justice, than that of Gaston Boissier, of the French
Academy, called Ciceron et ses Amis. Among his chapters one is devoted
to Cicero's remarkable intimacy with Caelius, which should be read by all
who wish to study Cicero. We have now come to the speech which he made
in this year in defence of Caelius. Caelius had entered public life very
early, as the son of a rich citizen who was anxious that his heir should
be enabled to shine as well by his father's wealth as by his own
intellect. When he was still a boy, according to our ideas of boyhood,
he was apprenticed to Cicero,[27] as was customary, in order that he
might pick up the crumbs which fell from the great man's table. It was
thus that a young man would hear what was best worth hearing; thus he
would become acquainted with those who were best worth knowing; thus
that he would learn in public life all that was best worth learning.
Caelius heard all, and knew many, and learned much; but he perhaps
learned too much at too early an age. He became bright and clever, but
unruly and dissipated. Cicero, however, loved him well. He always liked
the society of bright young men, and could forgive their morals if their
wit were good. Clodius--even Clodius, young Curio, Caelius and afterward
Dolabella, were companions with whom he loved to associate. When he was
in Cilicia, as Proconsul, this Caelius became almost a second Atticus to
him, in the writing of news from Rome.
But Caelius had become one of Clodia's many lovers, and seems for a time
to have been the first favorite, to the detriment of poor Catullus. The
rich father had, it seems, quarrelled with his son, and Caelius was in
want of money. He borrowed it from Clodia, and then, without paying his
debt, treated Clodia as she had treated Catullus. The lady tried to get
her money back, and when she failed she accused her former lover of an
attempt to poison her. This she did so that Caelius was tried for the
offence. There were no less than four accusers, or advocates, on her
behalf, of whom her brother was one. Caelius was defended by Crassus as
well as by Cicero, and was acquitted. All these cases combined
political views with criminal charges. Caelius was declared to have been
a Catilinian conspirator. He was also accused of being in debt, of
having quarrelled with his father, of having insulted women, of having
beaten a Senator, of having practised bribery, of having committed
various murders, and of having perpetrated all social and political
excesses to which his enemies could give a name. It was probable that
his life had been very irregular, but it was not probably true that he
had attempted to poison Clodia.
The speech is very well worth the trouble of reading. It is lively,
bright, picturesque, and argumentative; and it tells the reader very
much of the manners of Rome at the time. It has been condemned for a
passage which, to my taste, is the best in the whole piece. Cicero takes
upon himself to palliate the pleasures of youth, and we are told that a
man so grave, so pure, so excellent in his own life, should not have
condescended to utter sentiments so lax in defence of so immoral a young
friend. I will endeavor to translate a portion of the passage, and I
think that any ladies who may read these pages will agree with me in
liking Cicero the better for what he said upon the occasion. He has been
speaking of the changes which the manners of the world had undergone,
not only in Rome but in Greece, since pleasure had been acknowledged
even by philosophers to be necessary to life. "They who advocate one
constant course of continual labor as the road to fame are left alone in
their schools, deserted by their scholars. Nature herself has begotten
for us allurements, seduced by which Virtue herself will occasionally
become drowsy. Nature herself leads the young into slippery paths, in
which not to stumble now and again is hardly possible. Nature has
produced for us a variety of pleasures, to which not only youth, but
even middle-age, occasionally yields itself. If, therefore, you shall
find one who can avert his eyes from all that is beautiful--who is
charmed by no sweet smell, by no soft touch, by no rich flavor--who can
turn a deaf ear to coaxing words--I indeed, and perhaps a few others,
may think that the gods have been good to such a one; but I doubt
whether the world at large will not think that the gods have made him a
sorry fellow." There is very much more of it, delightfully said, and in
the same spirit; but I have given enough to show the nature of the
excuse for Caelius which has brought down on Cicero the wrath of the
moralists.